All that matters: Wake Forest hangs on against Virginia

By Adam Smith / Times-News

Published: Thursday, January 10, 2013 at 12:48 AM.

Harris finished with 16 points, aided by 8-for-8 shooting from the foul line. McKie added 14 points as the Demon Deacons (8-6 overall, 1-1 ACC) defeated Virginia for the 10th consecutive time in this building, a streak that dates to the 2000-01 season.

Six of Harris’ free throws came in the final 79 seconds. Wake Forest clung to a 53-52 lead when he stepped to the line with 5.3 seconds remaining and knocked down his most clutch pair of foul shots.

“I was pretty sure about that,” the senior guard said, about delivering in that critical moment.

Wake Forest coach Jeff Bzdelik then called timeout and contemplated fouling the Cavaliers upon their ensuing inbounds pass, before deciding against that strategy and instead instructing C.J. Harris to face-guard Joe Harris, the Virginia sharpshooter who heated up in the waning seconds.

What followed was another botched possession for Virginia (11-4, 1-1).

Jontel Evans pushed his dribble past midcourt and had an open 3-point look on the wing. But he declined and turned and passed to 6-foot-11 Mike Tobey, who was trailing and not ready to receive and shoot.

The ball trickled away from Tobey, leaving Joe Harris launching a desperation heave that fell well off the mark and quickly was waved off as failing to beat the buzzer by official Raymond Styons.

WINSTON-SALEM — Never mind the details, however massive or minuscule, that came into play along the bumpy way.

C.J. Harris focused more on the bottom line in the immediate aftermath of Wake Forest’s 55-52 defeat of Virginia at Joel Coliseum.

“That’s all that matters,” Harris said, nodding toward Wednesday night’s final score on a stat sheet in front of him. “I’m proud of the guys, how we buckled down.”

In what became their latest confidence-builder, the Demon Deacons, realizing that efficiency and grace had little place here, depended on toughness and grit to claw out a scrappy Atlantic Coast Conference victory against one of the nation’s stingiest defensive teams.

And they did so by enduring a potentially derailing, almost difficult-to-comprehend drought on offense.

Wake Forest generated nothing from the field — zero buckets — and produced just nine points on free throws during the game’s last 10 minutes while frittering away nearly all of a 14-point lead.

“But we stayed with it,” Wake Forest forward Travis McKie said. “I think early in the season we would’ve put our head down and had a pity party. But we stayed with it and continued to fight hard.”

Harris finished with 16 points, aided by 8-for-8 shooting from the foul line. McKie added 14 points as the Demon Deacons (8-6 overall, 1-1 ACC) defeated Virginia for the 10th consecutive time in this building, a streak that dates to the 2000-01 season.

Six of Harris’ free throws came in the final 79 seconds. Wake Forest clung to a 53-52 lead when he stepped to the line with 5.3 seconds remaining and knocked down his most clutch pair of foul shots.

“I was pretty sure about that,” the senior guard said, about delivering in that critical moment.

Wake Forest coach Jeff Bzdelik then called timeout and contemplated fouling the Cavaliers upon their ensuing inbounds pass, before deciding against that strategy and instead instructing C.J. Harris to face-guard Joe Harris, the Virginia sharpshooter who heated up in the waning seconds.

What followed was another botched possession for Virginia (11-4, 1-1).

Jontel Evans pushed his dribble past midcourt and had an open 3-point look on the wing. But he declined and turned and passed to 6-foot-11 Mike Tobey, who was trailing and not ready to receive and shoot.

The ball trickled away from Tobey, leaving Joe Harris launching a desperation heave that fell well off the mark and quickly was waved off as failing to beat the buzzer by official Raymond Styons.

“This was a great, gutty win by our young basketball team,” Bzdelik said. “We were very resilient. We just battled. We defended our tails off from wire to wire.”

Wake Forest led by 14 three times in the second half. The last such instance occurred on a freshman-to-freshman feed, with 6-9 forward Devin Thomas finding cutting guard Codi Miller-McIntyre for a 46-32 lead with 10:22 left.

By the end, the Demon Deacons, out of necessity, had hunkered down into maintain mode.

Virginia drilled 8 of 14 shots from beyond the 3-point arc earlier this week in beating North Carolina to open ACC play, but hadn’t connected on a 3 here until Evan Nolte finally broke through from deep with 54.6 seconds remaining.

That sliced Wake Forest’s lead from seven to 50-46.

Then Joe Harris buried back-to-back 3s separated by 10 seconds, the final one highly contested with C.J. Harris practically draped on top of him, to pull the Cavaliers within 53-52 with 6.3 seconds left.

Tobey contributed two points in Virginia’s victory against North Carolina. He came off the bench with 14 points on Wednesday night for the Cavaliers, who arrived having won 10 of their previous 11 games.

Joe Harris finished with 13 points. Akil Mitchell added 10 points and 10 rebounds. Virginia’s grinding style is designed to value possessions, but the Cavaliers coughed up 17 turnovers, their second-worst total of the season.

Virginia coach Tony Bennett said his team’s more experienced players were out of sync and played rushed.

“I thought offensively we gambled a little bit,” Bennett said. “We hit some tough shots, some plays down the stretch, some nice offensive rebounds to get us to close that gap. The meat of the game, there wasn’t enough there.”

Wake Forest shot just 5-for-19 from the field (26.3 percent) in the second half, missed its last eight attempts and soundly was beaten on the backboards (for the game Virginia held a 40-24 advantage in rebounds).

Free throws (15-for-18 shooting in the second half) and defense helped the Demon Deacons survive.

“We knew it wasn’t going to be a high-scoring game,” C.J. Harris said. “We knew that every possession mattered. We dug down and got stops. That’s the most important thing.”

McKie scored seven straight points before Tyler Cavanaugh’s driving lay-in made it 29-20 Wake Forest in the final 90 seconds of the first half.

Virginia managed just six points in the last seven minutes of the first half and trailed by seven at intermission.

-- TIP-INS …:Wake Forest won for the fourth time in five games — the only loss in that span was suffered at No. 1 Duke — and McKie said “our confidence is going to get bigger.” So could the Demon Deacons be trending upward in the ACC? “Hell yeah. Most definitely,” McKie said. “I think we’re in a good place as a team.” … The next three games certainly seem doable for Wake Forest. Boston College visits on Saturday, then come road dates at Clemson and Virginia Tech.